Portable terminals capable of servicing wireless voice calls and exchanging information have become the necessities of life according to those rapid development. Portable terminals have been recognized that it is possible to be simply carried and service wireless voice calls at the beginning of those propagation. However, usage ranges of portable terminals, such as a remote controller function using local-area communication, an image capturing function using a mounted digital camera, and a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) function as well as a telephone call function, a scheduling management function, etc. according to development of those technology and introduction of the wireless Internet, have become more and more increased to satisfy desires of users.
The wireless LAN function services communication such as the Internet to the portable terminal (e.g., a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a notebook, etc.) which is positioned within certain distance centered on a place where an Access Point (AP) which is a radio access device is installed. An arrival distance of radio waves of a wireless LAN was only 10 meters at the beginning of its introduction. However, the arrival distance of radio waves of the wireless LAN has been expanded to 50 meters to several-hundred meters after the 2000s and a transfer rate of the wireless LAN has also been improved to transmit and receive high-volume multimedia data.
Recently, Wi-Fi technology capable of freely performing communication between Wi-Fi devices without an AP or a router and sharing a printer, contents, etc. was developed. The Wi-Fi technology is referred to as Wi-Fi P2P. A P2P group owner and a P2P client may be composed by the Wi-Fi technology.
FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a process of providing a UPnP service function based on Wi-Fi direct connection in a general portable terminal.
Referring to FIG. 1, assuming that the portable terminal reproduces previously stored multimedia data on a peripheral TV using a UPnP service based on Wi-Fi direct connection, a description will be given.
First of all, the portable terminal for performing the aforementioned operation operates a wireless LAN module in step 101. The portable terminal proceeds to step 103 and performs a device discovery process. Herein, the device discovery process is a device discovery process of a Wi-Fi MAC layer. The portable terminal sends a discovery request signal to discover a TV which exists around it and receives response signals from peripheral terminals including the TV. The portable terminal generates a list for the terminals which exist around it using the received response signals.
The portable terminal which performs the aforementioned device discovery process proceeds to step 105 and performs a device selection process of selecting the TV included on the list. The portable terminal proceeds to step 107 and assigns an Internet Protocol (IP) for communicating with the TV.
The portable terminal proceeds to step 109 and performs a UPnP discovery process for discovering devices of an application layer. Herein, the portable terminal discovers a terminal which enters a network and verifies a URI address capable of controlling the terminal.
The portable terminal proceeds to step 111, performs a UPnP description process using the URI address verified in step 109, and verifies service contents of the terminal.
The portable terminal proceeds to step 113 and performs a UPnP service function based on Wi-Fi direct connection by reproducing the previously stored multimedia data.
The portable terminal ascertains whether a terminal exists through the device discovery process of the Wi-Fi MAC layer. However, the portable terminal performs the device discovery process of the application layer again in step 109. Therefore, there is a problem in that time up to a service provision ready state is delayed.
Accordingly, in order to solve the aforementioned problem, an apparatus and method for reducing a device discovery process which is repeatedly performed is needed.